


Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Paranoid_Pug



Category: Macbeth - Shakespeare, Shakespeare - Fandom
Genre: Curses, I wrote this as an English class project, Magic, Oneshot, Short Story, Witches, from the witch's perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paranoid_Pug/pseuds/Paranoid_Pug
Summary: The witches prepare their Hell-broth for Macbeth's arrival.A short story I wrote for my English class.
Kudos: 2





	Something Wicked This Way Comes

The strange yet familiar aroma stung her senses - a mixture of herbs, spices and the metallic tang of blood. She hunched through the low-arched doorway, an assortment of crude talismans and trinkets brushing against her cheeks and tangling in her mess of black curls. Smoke and mist filled the cave and the sounds of crackling flames met her ears. The cauldron sat, bubbling and boiling and the Weird Sisters around it rose to greet her.

"Hard at work, my children?" she murmured.

Her ragged skirts swept the lines of a spell-circle chalked on the rough stone floor. Hecate spread her fingers slowly, savouring the warmth that coursed through them as the glowing mist gathered in her palm, swirling and writhing upwards in a blaze of light and smoke. A visage of a man took shape, his face streaked with the pains of battle; blood, dirt and grime marked his face like war-paint. Macbeth, as the witches had last seen him, fresh from war. Though his battle helmet had now been replaced by a crown and his sword by a sceptre, the blood and dirt still remained, staining every inch of his being.

"Macbeth will come again, my children, and you must make amends for your betrayal of destiny. Let him spurn fate, scorn death and bear his hopes above wisdom, grace and fear. Let him become his own undoing," Hecate crooned, her fingers sparking with eerie light. Mist poured from her hands, sending cold tingles down her arms. She raised her palms towards the roof, letting the haze flow around her and toward the fire, which sputtered and grew, its now black tendrils licking the cauldron fiercely.

"Begin your potion, my midnight hags. I have something I must take care of to ensure Macbeth's arrival."

*

Hecate sat cross-legged in the centre of the stone circle, the howling heath wind stirring her mane of tangled black curls around her taut, angular face. The open hills swayed with a sea of purple heather, their woody musk mingling with the dried herbs and spices wafting from the cave. Her collection of crude trinkets and charms were strewn around her circle, scattered among the finger-drawn whorls and markings that stained the ground dark red. Her eyelids fluttered frantically, a string of words hissing past her lips as she chanted in some demonic language. The chant grew stronger, her words intertwining with the screams of the wind until her eyelids snapped open, revealing wholly black eyes, the iris and whites swallowed up by darkness. The wind swelled to a crescendo before a heavy silence consumed the hills. Hecate felt her consciousness rip from her body and she floated through the air above the heath, glancing back at her stiff corporal form among the heather. Smiling darkly, she let the wind carry her transparent essence towards the castle in the distance.

Hecate drifted through the halls of Macbeth's castle, unseen and unheard among the bustling banquet preparations. The guests were arriving and yet none felt her malignant presence. Hecate slunk between the milling crowds and inched towards her target. The bloody tyrant stood by the doors, welcoming guests with a sickening false cheer, all the while scanning faces for reassurance that his latest deed had been carried out. Hecate glided silently to his side and circled him voraciously, reaching out a translucent hand to caress his cheek. Macbeth flinched and looked around in shock, only to be met with empty air. After a second he shook his head as if dismissing the feeling as part of his imagination, then returned to shiftily inspecting his guests.

"Hear me spirits as I craft this spell," Hecate whispered, letting the fire flood through her veins. Her astral form flared with spectral light, casting an eerie blue glow across the dining room.

"Let Macbeth wallow in his guilt,

And with this spell his fate be built.

Let him return to Witches' Heath,

Macbeth's future we shall bequeath.

I, Hecate, plant this seed of thought,

With bloody visions shall his mind be fraught.

Until Macbeth doth meet his end,

Ne'er shall he know whom is foe or friend."

Hecate gasped, her spell complete. A wave of exhaustion washed over her, making her astral form momentarily flicker, but she smiled nonetheless and settled among the oblivious diners to watch her curse take effect. It didn't take long for a ghostly apparition to take shape – the figure of the king's latest victim Banquo, translucent and deathly white.

"Which of you has done this?" Macbeth hissed, his face whitening to the exact pallor of the bloodless phantom which stood before him. Hecate laughed - a harsh, breathless sound - as Macbeth paled before the manifestation of his guilt. His face blanched with fear, Macbeth cowered before the invisible entity while Hecate cackled with sadistic glee, his dinner guests watching on in confusion and dread.

"Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once!"

The tyrant's wife frantically hurried the guests from the room and turned towards her husband, desperately trying to regain her control. It was obvious, however, that he was shaken and that little of his wife's scolding made it through his wall of fear.

"I will, to-morrow, and betimes I will, to the Weird Sisters: more shall they speak," he murmured, and Hecate smiled again. Her job complete, she closed her eyes and let herself drift back into her own body.

Back at the Witches' Heath, Hecate's eyes snapped open, again returned to their normal shade. A harsh and tuneless chant carried across the hill and Hecate calmly rose to follow the sound:

"Double, double,

Toil, and trouble,

Fire burn

And cauldron bubble."

The Weird Sisters looked up from their hell-broth as Hecate glided noiselessly into the cave. A sinister grin spread slowly across their faces and they raised their fingers to the sky.

"By the pricking of my thumbs," they sang as footsteps echoed along the heath's worn stone path, "something wicked this way comes."


End file.
